There are several different formats possible, but the most relevant to Printwear & Promotion subscribers is the reader competition. In essence, you exchange your product for space in a newspaper/magazine. Effectively, you "buy" space at full rate-card prices with product "sold" at full retail price i.e. no discounts apply.

You get space to tell your business story - expertise, range, price, service etc. The publication gets a free competition for its readers, but there's a lot more in it for the provider of prizes than that bald statement suggests.

First of all, newspapers run these promotions to boost their circulation. Typically in an evening daily newspaper, such a competition would require entrants to read every issue during a week, including Saturday's. This has two main benefits: one, you the promoting partner receive coverage throughout the week; two, because this is activity that benefits the publication itself, the competition is featured in highly visible parts of the newspaper.

There's more. Such competitions are run through the editorial department, not via advertising. This distinction between editorial space and advertising space is not semantics; it means that the promotion can be (and often is) featured in parts of the publication you literally cannot buy at any price, eg the front page masthead.

Also, should the publication be advertising itself at the time of your promotion (classically by direct mail), you will feature there too, because your promotion is a key benefit to prospective readers. They will most certainly make a feature of it in their newsstand and newsagents promo posters, again because it helps sell the paper.

Then there's the database of entrants. Now, some publications can be a bit iffy on this issue - "they're our readers, we control who communicates with them" - but a promoter should negotiate tough on this one - if you don't get the database, they don't get the competition. There is an edge: someone has to take all those postcards or envelopes and put the detail from the entry form into a computer. It's not free, but it's worth it.

There's a further cost benefit. Because this is editorial space the publication picks up all artwork costs. Of course, this means they do have the final say on detailed copy and layout. You can expect them to respect your wishes but you can't insist.

For printwear businesses there is a further issue to address: your product is normally a business purchase, which by definition means such a promotion would only apply to a part of the readership. I suggest that this technique is still valid. First, local papers have business sections and many are mustard keen to improve them. You could be just what they're looking for. Second, they all have sports sections and printwear and sport go together well, not just for team strips (although that might be a consideration). Thirdly, the general public do buy plenty of printwear in one form or other. This would be an ideal means of demonstrating that they can have leisure wear featuring their choice of message (and colour and weight of cotton).

Let's take an example. You offer the local evening paper a deal that gives 10 lucky winners a year's supply of printwear. Total value is, say, £3,500. The promotion would be announced with perhaps a half page plus smaller spaces thereafter. In the introductory piece the shop tells readers its story eg "On yer Chest is Anytown's best producer of printwear supplying a massive choice of printed and embroidered clothing to businesses schools sports teams and thousands of individuals". You would follow that with a variety of examples and of course photographs. You should expect to feature your logo, with a store photograph and a location map. Each day that the promotion runs a question(s) appears and the entrant must get these right to be in consideration. Winners are drawn at the end. You might also contemplate basing your promotion on the most witty slogan for printwear suggested by a reader.

As you will have realised each individual media promotion is subject to negotiation. There is no rate card that says "you give us £x,000 of prizes, we give you y amount of space". This being editorial, the newspapers are under no obligation to accept your idea, so you need to work on it to come up with an interesting structure. The retail price of the prizes and the advertising value of the space are in the public domain. After that, it's down to you to convince them first to do it and then to give you more space. Insist that they are specific, eg page 7 for the launch half page, a quarter page to follow, eighth pages plus entry form thereafter. Ask about that front page. Ask for winners photos at your premises to be published in the paper.

Although there's no ratecard, publications do have a formula that they tend to follow, so note what your chosen paper does. If you have a choice of publications, it's likely that one of them will be a more regular user of promotions. If your preferred publication doesn't feature such offers, don't assume they don't want to. They may just not receive relevant proposals. There used to be a perception that this marketing technique is rather tacky, only suited to the Red tops. Should you get this sort of snotty reaction you might point out that the quality dailies and Sundays run reader promotions these days. The fact remains that, regardless of age, sex and demographics, people like promotions.

So what do you get from a media promotion? First of all, this is high quality publicity. Entrants have to read about your business and products to enter. Secondly, it's good value: if those printwear prizes have £3,500 retail value, you will pay far less and a manufacturer may give you a particularly good price for the publicity benefit. Thirdly, there's the database of entrants. You know they all want your product and that they like promotional offers, so you can mail the losers on that basis.

This technique can't be used often, but it can generate big response - I once got 2.5% of the circulation of a national Sunday paper from one appearance: nearly 60,000 entries. A small business using a local paper could plan on at least a similar percentage, depending on the value of the offer. Developed properly, that would result in lots of turnover. It should also be obvious that the awareness of the store is a major value and some entrants will come in looking for answers to those competition questions.

The downsides are few. You have to be a good negotiator to get a real deal and not everybody is. Finding the right person to talk to at the publisher can be frustratingly difficult; start with the editor, it may well be him/her. The local paper you want to use may just not be interested in your idea. It's not as easy as placing an ad, but the benefits far outweigh the extra graft.

Paul Clapham is a marketing consultant with over 25 years' experience covering a broad range of business sectors and a full spread of marketing disciplines. He runs his own business, working with small, medium and large companies alike to increase their profitability through marketing. Tel:01453 765432

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